O'Reilly on "assassins who work for Media Matters and Move On"

During the September 5 edition of his nationally syndicated radio show, Bill O'Reilly once again attacked Media Matters for America and MoveOn.org, calling the two organizations "the most vicious element in our society today" and referring to their staff as "assassins." O'Reilly stated: "All right, now let's get into a serious situation. Look, we have two political parties in this country, and that's always served us fairly well. We need a third. We absolutely need a third political party here. But one of the political parties is now basically afraid of its fringe element and that's the Democratic Party. Now, the fringe element is centered around an outfit called Media Matters."

Later, discussing his perception that there is a connection between the philanthropist George Soros and Media Matters, O'Reilly claimed that Soros and progressive financier Peter Lewis "have poured $5 million, at least, into this MoveOn outfit. All right, now what this outfit is, is they are fanatical left-wingers who if you don't agree with them they will attack you. Now, there are offshoots of these. They use an outfit called Media Matters to do their sliming for them in the media," through The New York Times and NBC News. O'Reilly asserted, "Elements at both of those places take Media Matters and MoveOn stuff and put it on the air and in their newspaper, legitimizing it." Then, referencing the flowchart he concocted and introduced during the April 23 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly added: "Now, this is very well organized. Now, we gave you this about a couple months ago, a chart that showed all the money, and that's big, big money. The assassins who work for Media Matters and MoveOn are very well paid. They make six figures. They are doing it for money."

As Media Matters has documented (here, here, and here), O'Reilly has repeatedly -- and falsely -- asserted that Media Matters has received funding from Soros. For instance, O'Reilly opened a segment during the April 23 edition of The O'Reilly Factor by displaying the "chart" purporting to depict Soros' "complicated political operation." O'Reilly claimed that "Soros and a few other wealthy radicals who help him are funneling money into the political process" by funding Media Matters, which "feeds its propaganda to some mainstream media people." Similarly, during the April 26 edition of his Fox News program, O'Reilly asserted that "the vile Media Matters outfit is denying receiving funding from any of George Soros' outfits," and claiming, "Well, that is a total lie." As evidence, O'Reilly noted that the Tides Foundation donated more than $1 million to Media Matters in 2005, "[a]nd just by coincidence Soros' Open Society Institute [OSI] donated more than a million dollars to Tides in 2005." He added: "Figure it out." In fact, Media Matters has never received funding from Soros, either directly or indirectly.

From the September 5 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: All right, thanks to Shania Twain for that nice jazzy lead-in.

There is a Democratic congressman in Washington state being attacked by his own for giving an honest appraisal -- his honest appraisal -- of Iraq. And that is what we're going to deal with the first hour. It's interesting how vicious this MoveOn outfit and all their other acolytes actually is. And, you know, I've said it before, but when I get this kind of a thing dropped in my lap, I have to report it to you because it is -- what's happening in America is now the far left is blackmailing the Democratic Party. They are basically saying, "Look, if you don't go along with our far-left opinion, we're going to attack you." We saw it with [Sen.] Joseph Liebermann [I-CT], we're seeing it with this Congressman [Brian] Baird [D] now in Washington state.

Now, that's blackmail in a loose sense. They're basically threatening them. Now, you can call it whatever you want -- extortion. You know, "We don't want money, but we want approval. And you'd better tell the America people exactly what we tell you to say. You'd better say exactly what we tell you, or we're going to get you." All right. Now, you usually get this from the opposite parties.

[...]

O'REILLY: All right, now let's get into a serious situation. Look, we have two political parties in this country, and that's always served us fairly well. We need a third. We absolutely need a third political party here. But one of the political parties is now basically afraid of its fringe element and that's the Democratic Party.

Now, the fringe element is centered around an outfit called Media Matters. Now, this outfit was put together by billionaire George Soros and billionaire Peter Lewis, two loons. Now, these loons -- I mean, if you look at Soros and Lewis, what they want for the country -- and I wrote about it in Culture Warrior -- I mean, they want a totally different country. OK? And they want open borders, they want one world government, they want legalized narcotics, they want -- you know, I mean, it's just crazy.

They've -- together, they've poured $5 million, at least, into this MoveOn outfit. All right, now what this outfit is, is they are fanatical left-wingers who if you don't agree with them they will attack you. Now, there are offshoots of these. They use an outfit called Media Matters to do their sliming for them in the media. And they use the Daily Kos to do sliming there. We've talked about all the Democratic candidates going to the Kos convention. And then, if it wasn't bad enough that they're on the Internet doing this stuff and they have the money to actually make commercials to slime people as they're doing to this congressman, Brian Baird, in Washington.

They have two primary mainstream media outfits to get their defamation out. That's The New York Times and NBC News. Elements at both of those places take Media Matters and MoveOn stuff and put it on the air and in their newspaper, legitimizing it. Now, this is very well organized. Now, we gave you this about a couple months ago, a chart that showed all the money, and that's big, big money. The assassins who work for Media Matters and for MoveOn are very well paid. They make six figures. They are doing it for money. All right, and they are the most vicious element in our society today.

There is no corresponding level of this kind of vitriol on the right. Now, the worst one we came up with was some website out of California, the right-wing thing, and we had them in and they're bad but they're not that bad. I mean, I'm not justifying them. I don't like them. Now, are they suing us, by the way? I think they're suing us now. They're not suing us now?

LIS WIEHL (co-host): They're not.

O'REILLY: They were but they're not. But whatever. I mean, look, I don't care, but to compare them to MoveOn and the money that they have is crazy.